I was happily surprised to find that Laura was interested in joining me for this midweek outing. Her performance during the Challenge had shown she was more than capable for such a trek, leaving me no worries in that regard. And if she was somewhat slower than the usual pace I was certainly fine with that - I didn't expect to be setting any records, always appreciate the company, and would actually enjoy going a bit slower myself. Despite my reassurances to the contrary, Laura was still worried that she was going to slow me down and planned on starting off before me to give her more time to reach Bishop Pass in the wee hours of the night. Sean O'Rourke had tentatively agreed to come along as well, but he never materialized at the TH or enroute.
I was not surprised therefore to find myself alone at the
South Lake TH when I
started off at 2a under a starlit sky. What did surprise me was that I didn't
see Laura's orange Truck o' Fun in the parking lot when I did my loop through
it. Did she change her mind? (No, I had simply missed it on my
drive-thru). A mile and a half from the TH I got my first clue
in the form of a small stuffed animal I found
on the trail. "Animal" is used in
the generic sense here because it was not of any lifeform real or imaginary that
I could recognize. It wasn't the orange moose I'd seen her carry before, but it
seemed like something she might have along. I thought perhaps it was meant
for me to find and began looking for other such creatures along the trail. I
found none.
It was 4:15a before I reached Bishop Pass. From a distance I spotted Laura's
headlamp and soon
found her shivering terribly, trying to keep warm. She had
arrived some 45min earlier and had spent most of that time attempting to keep
from freezing. When I told her I was only 15 minutes faster than her in reaching
the pass, the foolishness of her plan was finally evident. We took a few quick
photos
and then carried on over the north side of the pass into Dusy Basin. And
yes, she had dropped Jennie Giardia along the way, though not
intentionally. And now I know what one of these intestinal microterrorists
looks like. It was supposed to be a gift for Sean who was a definite maybe to
join us on the hike, but of course he wasn't with me. Where she had found such
a stuffed animal or why she would purchase it remained a deep mystery.
The next part of our plan looked better on paper than it turned out. Dusy Basin
is a broad, terraced area of about 8-9 sq. miles on the south side of Bishop
Pass. Our route would travel across this basin, about 2/3 on trail and then
cross-country up to Knapsack Pass just south of Columbine Peak. The trail
portion was no trouble in the dark, but once we started cross-country things got
a bit more problematic. We could see the outlines of Isosceles and Columbine
peaks
on the skyline, even make out Knapsack Pass once we had traveled far enough
along the trail. The landscape between the trail and pass, however, were wholey
unviewable in the dark and therein lay the trouble. The terrain is undulating
and lightly forested, but possessing a good deal more brush than I would have
thought this rocky landscape capable of. We ended up in the main drainage
further south than we would have liked and had to navigate a serpentine route
through brush and small cliffs in order to climb back up to Knapsack Pass.
Laura was beginning to doubt my route-finding skills by the time we reached
the pass around 6:20a.
It was light enough to put away our headlamps, and finally light enough in
Dusy Basin,
now behind us, to see where we could have shortened our trip through
it by 20-30 minutes. Ah well, it should be easier in the afternoon when we
come back through it, no? Looking northeast and east we could see the shaded
relief of half a dozen 14ers on the Palisade Crest.
Southeast we could see peaks
stretching out long the Cirque Crest, though both Observation and Shakspere
were blocked from view. The next segment of our route consisted of a 3,000-foot
drop to Deer Meadow and Palisade Creek. The only beta we had was a description
in Secor depicting "many tedious class 2 cliffs", but we found something
a whole lot more pleasant. The first 1/2 of the descent has no route-finding
issues, just follow the drainage with a pleasant stream flowing through it, from
one 
alpine meadow down to 
the next
(perhaps these "cliffs" would be more tedious
on an ascent). It was very pretty and easy work making our way downstream,
stopping 
to photograph
flowers and ice formations we found along the way.
Halfway down we began to encounter more brush and
then trees as the forest cover
began to take over. Route-finding was no longer as easy. We kept to the
southwest side of the creek as recommended by Secor, but it was not hard to find
ourselves atop cliffs on that side if we strayed too far from the creek. I led
us into several dead ends before Laura lost all hope in my abilities and began
to take over the lead duties herself. I have to admit she did a better job and
I found it easier to just follow along rather than worry about where to turn
next. The last 500ft was a brushier affair as we moved further southwest out
of the drainage and onto the steeper slopes leading down to Deer Meadow. There
was a superb view of 
Devils Crags to be seen looking west. I took
a nasty slip on a granite slab in this section and came down hard on my hip.
Laura looked back to immediately ask if I was Ok. Rather than get back up, I
declared that this seemed like a good place to take a break. And so we did. I
examined my hip and decided it would mostly just be a very bad bruise, but
nothing seemed broken and there was very little blood. I would be reminded of
it the rest of the day with mild pain in that area, especially on the downhill
segments.
It was 8a when we reached
Deer Meadow and 
the JMT. We turned to follow the trail
for a short distance, but didn't stay on it for more than a few minutes.
The 7.5' topo shows a trail going up
Cataract Creek to the south, our next segment, but we'd been warned this trail
is no longer maintained. We didn't really have much idea where to find the old
trail junction, so I sort of led us in a charge on a diagonal tack across the
Palisade Creek drainage. This bold effort had some positive effects initially,
landing us at the main campsite found here, consisting of a large flat area,
a packer's 
lock box and a fire ring. Some 
deer
were grazing nearby and it took
us a few seconds to recall that we were in, appropriately, Deer Meadow. The
crossing of 
Palisade Creek
didn't go quite so well after this. As we moved
into a boggy area I called back to Laura to be careful of the swamp. She
immediately found herself with boots partly immersed in water. Naturally, I
laughed. Then we came to the creek proper where the best crossing I could find
on short notice was over a dicey collection of rocks and downed timber.
I did fine, but not
so Laura. I looked back when I heard the splash and
found Laura smiling and
pointing to her completely soaked boots. More laughing, but inside I was sure
glad it wasn't my feet that had gotten soaked - not with another 12hrs of hiking
to go!
Eventually managing to get across several braids of the creek and onto dry land
on the 
opposite side,
we went about looking for the mythical trail up Cataract
Creek, to no avail. Much of this may have been due to the fact that we
initially were looking for the trail on the east side of the creek when a close
perusal of the map clearly shows it on the west side. This wasn't much
of a bother in the beginning because the slopes were mostly
open and easy to
navigate, but about a mile up our easy slopes gave way to an ugly
boulder field
where the east side of the canyon had buried the canyon bottom in a layer of
rock shed over countless ages. We searched for the trail on the west side, but
found nothing. Laura spied what she thought was a track about 50ft up on the
east side going right through the boulder field, but I dismissed it as a visual
trick on the eye. We found a couple of 
ducks higher up the drainage
along what looked like
a very minimal use trail, but all in all it was a bust in trail-finding. Tom
Becht would insist later that there is a very decent trail for much of this
ascent, but as a hardened sceptic, I'm not buying it.
For all the trouble in searching out the Cataract Trail, the hike up it wasn't
all that bad, really. Only a bit brushy, and
quite scenic. It took us a little
less than two hours to reach 
Amphitheater Lake above
a headwall on the 
east fork
of the creek (the west fork could also have been used and might actually
be faster - I recall seeing a usable chute that rises from the basin to
a saddle just east of the summit). We stopped at the large lake for
a rest
and to refill water bottles. It was now 10:15a, more than 8hrs into the
hike, and it was becoming clear that like the previous two outings, this was
going to be harder than I had expected with more than an hour remaining to the
summit.
We followed Secor's description above the lake, going around the north and west
sides and then 
diagonally up
to a 
talus slope leading to the East Ridge of
Observation. The snow we found was minimal and was easily bypassed - this is
not the case earlier in the summer.
The talus slope led to a broad saddle with a view into
the Dumbell Lakes area
to the south, and our 
first view of the Observation summit to the
west. I got a short break here while waiting
for Laura to catch up. The East
Ridge is a class 2 hike over
easy terrain, though by now we were pretty tired.
Another half an hour from the saddle and we were finally atop Observation by
11:30a. It was a fine September day in the Sierra, not a cloud in the sky,
excellent visibility, and a delightful temperature at almost 12,400ft. The
ubiquitous aluminum cylinder lying
atop the summit held a register dating 
to 1977.
I took the time to photograph all 48 pages for posterity and we read many
of the entries while we took a long rest. There was a
2007 entry from Daryn
Dodge joking about Matthew and I not having dayhiked it yet (Daryn was the
last person to complete the SPS list before Matthew and had hiked with us on
several occasions). The following year Matthew was able to
poke back at Daryn.
In 2009 Daryn came back for a second visit and got in
a second jab at me before I could get 
the last word in.
There were also personal greetings from Tom Becht
in Aug, 2009 and Shane Smith a few months later. I had become predictable.
About a mile
NNW of Observation is Mt. Shakspere. Exactly how the Bard's name
got so horribly mangled on the maps isn't clear, but it was a named summit and
worth a visit, at least to me. Laura was game, but low on water and would likely
have to return to Amphitheater Lake for more. Taking stock of what I had
remaining, I guessed I'd have an extra quart of Gatorade to give Laura, allowing
both of us to make the traverse to Shakspere and down then down to Palisade
Creek. She accepted the offer and off we went.
There was some fun 
class 3 downclimbing immediately off the
summit of Observation, but mostly just a bunch of class 2
after that. We spent
a surprising amount of time, an hour and forty minutes traversing between the
two. Some of this was unavoidable. With the up and down nature of the
connecting ridge
there is more gain than one might have guessed from a quick look at a
map. Some was due to some route-finding errors that had me following the ridge
too closely and ended up with some back-tracking. And the final climb up
Shakpere's 
South Ridge was a tedious and tiring affair.
The register we found was older than the Observation one by several years,
placed 
in 1975
by a party led by RJ Secor. The peak gets climbed only about once
a year judging from the 14 pages of entries. Sitting atop the summit we took
another short break, considering
our route back over Knapsack Pass. Neither of us
was too keen on returning that way even if it might be faster. So instead we
decided on a plan to return to the JMT and follow that all the way back to the
junction with the Bishop Pass Trail near the LeConte Ranger Station on the
Middle Fork of the Kings River. Onward!
The 
NW Slopes
down to Palisade Creek are difficult class 2, over much loose
rock on steep terrain. The first 2,500ft are
the hardest, the last 1,000ft 
easier
with better footing under the moderate forest cover. We took slightly
different routes in the upper portions to keep from knocking rock down on each
other, rejoining where it became safer. It was 3:30p before got down to
Palisade Creek,
Laura having finished off the Gatorade some time before and
grown quite thirsty. After
restocking our supplies we found the JMT, Laura 
kissing it
for dramatic emphasis, and then 
down we went to the Middle Fork of
the Kings River. The gradient is 
fairly gently
the whole way and though we were tired we had an 
easy time
of this section because it was downhill.
It was almost 4:30p when we reached 
the junction at
the Kings River. It was a similarly delightful hike
up the river, though a bit harder now that we were
going uphill again and our progress slower. After a potty break, Laura suggested
that I should go ahead and leave her,
believing that she was slowing me down. It took some
effort to convince her this was hardly the case. In fact, I would likely have
been going at a slower pace on my own and was fairly content to let her
lead the pace out in front as she'd been doing. This seemed to cheer her up
nicely.
Just north of 
the bridge over Dusy Creek we stopped for more water
and ran across 
Ranger Rick,
the backcountry ranger stationed nearby. After Laura had
explained to him our itinerary, he commented that we'd gone to a great deal of
trouble to avoid getting a wilderness permit. He didn't seem altogether
convinced when we further explained that wasn't even a secondary consideration
in our doing this. It's really hard to explain that we do this for fun,
especially when exhausted as much as we were at that time and still having
more than six hours to go.
The toughest section was just ahead, the 3,300-foot climb back up to Bishop
Pass. I downed the second of two caffeinated DoubleShots I'd brought along when
we reached
the trail junction marking the start of this climb. We would spend
almost 3.5hrs to reach Bishop Pass, a fairly slow pace. We took a number of
needed breaks along the way, including one near the
wooden bridge over Dusy Creek 1/3 of the way up for
a coffee break. Laura had brought some instant Via
which helped give her a caffeine boost. I didn't much like the taste of it
though, truth be told. The sun was going down over
the Black Divide as we made
our way up, 
shadows
and then darkness overtaking the landscape as we entered Dusy Basin. There
were some headlamps from backpackers getting ready for bed at several locations,
pointed in our direction as we went by, probably curious as to what we were
doing on the trail at so late an hour.
It was 9:15p before we topped out at 
the pass. The
last several miles to reach it had seemed interminable, more so than I recalled
for previous trips to Devils Crags, Wheel, and McDuffie.
The descent
to South Lake was pretty quiet. We'd stopped chatting hours before,
sometime after starting up from the Kings River. With only our headlamps to
illuminate the short patch of trail in front of us, I followed Laura for the
entire distance down from the pass. She was going more slowly now and I would
have liked to go a bit faster just to finish up more quickly. But she had done
such a great job since we'd reached the Kings River that I just kept quietly
behind her the rest of the way. The pain from my bruised hip had returned
with a determination to make every step difficult. At first it would hurt when
I stepped down with the left foot, then with either foot, then even on the
flats and short uphills. Not a sharp pain, just a the sort of dull ache that
told me just how much I was going to pay for this over the next few days.
It was just before midnight when we reached the TH, putting the total time at 22hrs, some 3-4hrs longer than I had hoped. Grueling as it was, there was a good deal of satisfaction in getting this one done, leaving me only with Table Mtn to complete the SPS list. And I was certain that Table would be easier than these last three. Laura was similarly exhausted but had shed her misgivings about being able to do these long dayhikes. I was convinced she was capable of dayhiking the SPS list if she wanted, and I think after this one she was equally convinced. Three down - one to go!